SAR #13044

Americans are presumed innocent until droned...

Inquiring Mind: If wages are stagnant, household formation is at 20-year lows and unemployment is stuck near 8%, who is buying all these houses and driving up the prices? In our obsessive drive to re-inflate the housing bubble, aren't we in danger of... well, re-inflating the housing bubble?

Be Prepared: Pimco's Bill Gross is predicting the collapse of the American economy and global financial markets. It will be far worse than 2008 and it will probably happen this year. It will be our comeuppance for the massive Ponzi scheme that Bernanke has engineered for a grateful Wall Street. He points out that the Fed's massive cheap-money infusions have gone straight to finance and done nothing for the real economy. Well, he's certainly right about that part; let's hope he's wrong about the collapse stuff.

The Doctor Is In: An Indiana University artificial intelligence system diagnoses illnesses and prescribes treatment "significantly better" than human doctors. And for less money - 58% less.

Enough: Hundreds of Egyptian police are holding demonstrations to show that they no longer wish to be used in the political oppression of the citizens. Non-striking cops beat the crap out of them.

Me, Me Me! Senator Lindsey Graham wants America to understand how important he is, so he is going to place a 'hold' on the nominations of Chuck Hagel and John Brennan. It is just another Republican tantrum, embarrassing to watch and pointless - except it will get the Senator some publicity and that'll make him feel useful.

Against The Peace And Dignity Of The State: When the Senate renewed the Violence Against Women Act, 22 senators voted against offering women protection from ... well, violence. All 22 were (a) afraid the law would prevent guys from beating up lesbians, immigrants and Native Americans, and (b) Republicans.

The South, Rising Again: Republicans at the state level intend to conduct an experiment in austerity to prove that their moral indignation can be the basis for really bad economic policy. This has already been done. It's called Mississippi. Or Tennessee. Or Louisiana or Alabama and so on. Texas. These Republican-led idiocracies are proud to be low tax havens of with the resulting low public investment, low pay, environmental degradation, educational backwardness, high rates of unwanted pregnancy, poor health, and mistaken patriotism. But that's okay; let them that don't want none have memories of not having had any.

Q & A: Does Obama have the authority to kill Americans? Who could possibly give it to him? To claim Congress gave the President that ability assumes it was theirs to give. It isn't.

Fair Trial... Sure the government is eavesdropping on the conversations the 9/11 suspects have with their lawyers in court. That doesn't mean they're not going to get a fair trial before they're convicted.

Les_Misérables: North Carolina is cutting unemployment benefits from a maximum of $530 to $350 and cutting the duration from 20 to 12 weeks. That's a 60% reduction in the safety net and will thrown 17,000 citizens under the bus. The cuts will cause NC to lose $780 million in federal funding. NC's unemployment remains at 9.2%.

Because We're Bigger Than You Are: The Department of Homeland Security has taken onto itself the right to snach your electronic device and browse through its contents - if you are within 100 miles of a border. warrant? We're Homeland Security and we don't do warrants - we don't even need "reasonable suspicion". Assume the position.

Porn O'Graph: What's wrong with this picture?

The Parting Shot: